Q. What are the details of the Money Back Guarantee on CD/DVD Diagnostic?

A. Ordering CD/DVD Diagnostic is Risk Free.  Should you have problems retrieving your data after purchase, please contact InfinaDyne either by phone or email.  There are several steps we will take together which can be explained by our Customer Support Representatives.  After those steps have been taken, and we have not been able to solve your problem, we will refund your money.  This does not mean that if you decide after you get your data back that you would rather not pay that we will help you in this.

Q. The evaluation does not allow me to copy files, so how do I know it works?

A. The evaluation for CD/DVD Diagnostic show the files that can be retrieved.  When the files are JPEG, GIF or BMP images, a thumbnail preview can be displayed.  Aside from this, it is important to understand the nature of how data is “lost” on CD and DVD discs.  The files are never corrupted themselves.  The files become inaccessible because the directory on the disc is damaged.  If the disc is not physically damaged, your files are 100% intact.  Our software does not “repair” the files - they are never damaged.  After over five years of recovering thousands of CD and DVD discs we have seen very few where the files were listed but could not be copied.

Because of this, CD and DVD recovery is quite different from hard disk data recovery.

Q. What is the difference between the Evaluation Version and the Full Version of CD/DVD Diagnostic?

A. The Evaluation Version of CD/DVD Diagnostic finds your lost data.  However, it retrieves that data and copy it to another file to save requires a purchase of the Full Version.  Please note, the data that was found in the Evaluation Version will be found in the Full Version.   Additionally, we offer a Money Back Guarantee should you not be pleased with your data recovery results after purchase.

Q. How do I recover files with CD/DVD Diagnostic?

A. Click the “Copy All” toolbar button and all your files are copied from the disc.

Q. How can I unerase a deleted file?

A. Unerasing the file is not possible.  However, you can copy a deleted file to your hard disk.  There are two ways to detect a deleted file using CD/DVD Diagnostic.  (1) The file is shown with an icon with a red border around it. (2) It is in a created  “Unattached Items” folder and may not have the original name.  It may be necessary to check all of the unnamed files for it.  If the file is not in the list presented by CD/DVD Diagnostic, a complete examination of the disc will be necessary to locate the file. This may take some time, but it will usually locate the file.  You can force the complete examination by selecting the “Force intensive UDF examination” option in the Preferences dialog and then use the Refresh command or press F5.

Q. How long does it take to retrieve data from unreadable files?

A. It depends.  With anything except a UDF packet-written disc, like DirectCD and PacketCD, it takes less than a minute usually.  Packet-written discs can take much longer, sometimes as long as a day, depending on the drive and the disc.  The problem is not the speed of the drive, but is instead that the drive slows down to try to read sectors that are not readable - this is normal on such CD-R discs.

Q. Why does m my DirectCD disc says it is not recognized?

A. The reasons are many, and CD/DVD Diagnostic will handle nearly all of them.  Usually, problems are caused by:

(a) the disc was not ejected when the computer was shut down
(b) the computer crashed 
(c) a problem within DirectCD itself.
(d) physical damage to the disc

It is difficult to prevent (b) and (c).  You can prevent (a) by being sure to eject the disc before shutting down the computer - or even ejecting it when you are finished writing to it before doing anything else.  This will help (b) and (c) somewhat as well.  The last item, (d) is something that even CD/DVD Diagnostic can have problems with, but it will allow you to access more data than Windows alone will.

Q. Can I use CD/DVD Diagnostic without being an expert?

A. CD/DVD Diagnostic is simple to use.  Anyone able to create a CD-R can use CD/DVD Diagnostic to recover files which might otherwise be lost.

Q. Does CD/DVD Diagnostic support my CD-ROM drive?

A. There are no drive-specific features used by CD/DVD Diagnostic and it does not come with a list of drives that it works with.  All drives are supported.  For recovering discs we strongly recommend the use of a writer-type device.  Some discs will not be able to be accessed in a reader.

Q. What is the use of Readability Test?

A. The Readability Test does a sampled read from the disc with the error recovery setting for your device turned down as low as possible.  The idea is to find semi-readable spots that would otherwise be recovered by the device automatically.  Why is this important?  Instead of testing what your drive can read, it is testing how well any drive can read what is there.  This isn’t a scientific test against measurable standards, but it works on consumer hardware.  To get a “scientific test” you need special hardware and a dedicated tester - this can cost as much as $30,000.

Q. I have a CD with multiple sessions and deleted some files in the last session.  Can I access these files in other sessions without a session selector?

A: Using the Windows Explorer like interface, CD/DVD Diagnostic shows you all of the sessions at once.  You can then find the files and copy them from any session on the disc.

Q: While recording a CD an error caused the CD to be incomplete.  I fixed it by closing the session but found out that not all of the files were recorded - they are still in the directory but not present on the CD.  How can I know which files or directories aren't on the CD for real so I could delete them in my next session?

A: All of the files that are not actually present on the disc but in the directory have a red “X” icon to indicate the file is not available.  CD/DVD Diagnostic has a Disc Report tool which writes the entire directory of the CD to a single file.  This can assist in documenting those files that are and are not present.

Q. Will CD/DVD Diagnostic recover data from my disc?

A. If your disc can be read at all, CD/DVD Diagnostic will recover data from it.  If your disc cannot be read in your drive, please contact us for further assistance.

Q. Can this program repair my CD-RW disc?

A. While there are programs which promise to repair damaged UDF discs, we believe this is a job best left undone.  CD/DVD Diagnostic will read files which other programs claim are inaccessible and will provide a way to access your data without modifying the disc in any way.  If the disc is “repaired”, it may still have problems that cause later data to be lost.  It is best to get the data off the disc and format it.  Then you will not be risking future data.

Q. I cannot erase my CD-RW disc - can CD/DVD Diagnostic help?

A. CD/DVD Diagnostic does not erase discs.  However, you can download SuperBlank and try that utility.

Q. I accidentally “quick-erased” my CD-RW - help!

A. Unfortunately, quick-erase is more of a hardware thing than a software one.  Unlike a hard disk all of which can always be read, a CD-RW can only be read where the drive believes there is data.  The firmware of the drive prevents any read beyond that point.  Quick-erase resets this point to the beginning of the disc, which prevents any of the data from being read.  Special or modified hardware is required to read these discs and InfinaDyne is one of a few companies that has the necessary hardware.  Please contact us for more information about this.

Q. What files/VXD's/DLL's/etc. are installed by CD/DVD Diagnostic?

A. CD/DVD Diagnostic does not install anything outside of the InfinaDyne folder.  Also, no registry changes are made outside of those for the program itself.

The usual reason for this question is bad experiences with conflicts with other software and mystery crashes after installing it.  We are well aware of this kind of problem and our solution is no conflicts.  We do not do anything to Windows that will affect your computer in any way.  Uninstalling our software removes all trace of it.